Tag Archives: Group: Log Cabin Republicans

Washington Blade: Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor and secretary of Homeland Security under the Bush administration, issued the call for inclusion during his keynote address at the 2013 Spirit of Lincoln dinner, an annual event held in D.C. by the Log Cabin Republicans. “If we want to win, we need to be a party worthy of the 21st century,” Ridge said. “A nonjudgmental party where all who support us are welcome. A party where diversity of view, race, ethnicity, gender and religion are relished and promoted and nourished.”

Log Cabin Republicans: There has been discussion about whether we, as members of Log Cabin Republicans, are LGBT first or Republican first. Ultimately, we believe the answer is neither. We are Americans first, and as such, must stand for what we believe is right for our country.

The New Civil Rights Movement: When asked if the Republican Party specifically needs to do a better job of accepting opinions on gay marriage and other cultural issues that do not align with party orthodoxy, Cantor said “absolutely.”

CBS: To date, Log Cabin Republicans have not made a decision as to who to endorse for the general election. An automatic endorsement from the group for the GOP nominee is not a slam dunk, as the group has deferred from endorsing candidates in the past.

National Law Journal (subscription only): A federal judge has ruled that lawyers who represented the Log Cabin Republicans in a constitutional challenge to the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy deserve attorney fees and expenses, even though a federal appeals court ultimately vacated her ruling in the organization’s favor.

GOP victim of pro-homosexual ‘spin’?: The president of the Family Research Council and FRC Action says the claim by Log Cabin Republicans — a pro-homosexual group — that its executive director has been appointed to the Finance Committee of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is “completely false.”

Aaron Blake writing at Washington Post / The Fix: “[T]he Republican Party has moved steadily to the left on gay rights . . . Ten years ago, it wouldn’t have been so easy for many of these influential conservatives to ally themselves with gay Republicans. The GOP back then was winning on social issues and thought consolidating its social conservative base was the ticket to a sustained majority.”

SCOTUSblog: “The Obama Administration has asked the Ninth Circuit Court to put on hold, for 90 days or more, its review of the constitutionality of the 1993 federal law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. In a motion filed Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers said the Pentagon needs time to implement the new law that will repeal the ban but not immediately.”

The Bilerico Project (“daily experiments in LGBTQ”): “The underwritten story of the DADT repeal is how significant a role the Log Cabin Republicans played in lobbying GOP members of Congress. The question is now – will LGBT Democratic progressives seek common ground with their partisan counterparts to move the equality agenda forward in 2011?”

Mike Dorf writing at Dorf on Law: “Federal district courts have recently taken action on gay rights on three fronts: (1) Perry v. Schwarzenegger found a right of same-sex couples in California to marry; (2) Gill v. Office of Personnel Managementand its companion case invalidated the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that denies federal recognition to same-sex marriages that are legal under state law (there Massachusetts); and (3) Log Cabin Republicans v. United States invalidated Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell (DADT). Each case is currently pending on appeal. The issue presented in each case will probably make it to the Supreme Court within the next few years. Does the order in which they arrive matter? Possibly.”

Associated Press: “A Republican gay rights group is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a California trial judge’s order barring enforcement of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy to go back into effect.”

Washington Blade (“lgbtq” news source): “Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who is expected to become Speaker of the House in January, agreed to a request by the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans not to penalize House Republicans who voted in May for repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ according to the group’s leader.”

Lyle Denniston reports at SCOTUSblog: “A federal appeals court in California voted to allow the U.S. military to continue enforcing the 1993 law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. One judge of the three-judge panel would have stopped any discharges under that policy, but otherwise would have allowed it to remain in effect.” | Order, Log Cabin Republicans v. U.S. (Nov. 01, 2010)

A divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the U.S. government’s request for a stay while it challenges the trial court’s ruling that the ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional.

Ann Althouse links to the transcript and comments at her blog: “He wonders why the Log Cabin Republican are pursuing their court case, when they could instead try to get a few Republican Senators to vote for repeal. He says he doesn’t ‘understand the logic of’ using the courts when you could go to Congress, but of course he does. People conceive of their equality in terms of their individual rights — which don’t depend on the support of political majorities and supermajorities. As a Harvard-trained lawyer and sometime law professor, he knows that. He knows why people go to courts. I don’t buy his understanding of the logic. Or should I say his understandings of the logics?”

International Business Times: “Judge Virginia Phillips of California’s federal court rejected the U.S. government’s request to stay her injunction, Monday, a move which is likely to prompt the government to turn to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or even the Supreme Court to overturn her ruling.”

Lyle Denniston writing at SCOTUSblog: “Accusing the Obama Administration of “hypocrisy at its highest levels” for trying to keep in force the ‘don’t ask/don’t tell’ policy that the government opposes and wants ended, a gay-rights group told a federal judge on Friday that maintaining the policy even temporarily will weaken the military services and national security. Using strong and often accusing language on every one of its 12 pages of argument, the group — the Log Cabin Republicans — said the Administration ‘should be ashamed to be seeking’ that effect. (The document is here.)”

Metro Weekly / Poliglot: “[T]he ADF case — Boardley v. Department of the Interior — involved a regulation and not a statute like that involved in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States. That distinction, ultimately, ends any comparison sought by [executive director of Servicemembers United] Nicholson between the [administration's] actions in the cases.”

“According to the Times article, ‘recruiters turned [the ex-sailor] away hastily, saying they had no knowledge of any injunction,’ Log Cabin lawyer Dan Woods wrote in a letter Thursday to the Justice Department.”

“Based on the evidence submitted, the court concluded that LCR proved the Act does not further military readiness, but also that the Act: contributes to recruiting shortages; causes discharge of otherwise qualified servicemembers with critical skills; contributes to lower admission standards; that the delays in investigations until servicemembers return from combat deployment show that the Policy is not necessary to further military readiness or unit cohesion; that it harms rather than furthers unit cohesion and morale; and that military housing already provides sufficient protection of privacy of servicemembers. Therefore, the court held that the Defendants failed to show the Act was necessary to significantly further the Government’s important interests in military readiness and unit cohesion, and found the Act violated substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Washington Post: “As polls show that growing numbers of Americans back greater rights for gay men and lesbians, some well-known Republican figures, such as former party chairman Ken Mehlman,who recently came out, are calling for the party to shift its stances on such issues. But Christian conservatives warn that the GOP could lose its base if it endorses same-sex marriage or takes other pro-gay-rights stands.”

Michael Foust reports at Baptist Press: “The Obama Justice Department is asking a federal judge to keep the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on homosexuals in place, arguing that rulings in other circuits upholding the ban prevent the judge from issuing a nationwide injunction against the 17-year-old policy.”

Politico: “The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins has written to National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn for his plan to stop by a fundraiser for the Log Cabin Republicans next week.”

NPR: “A gay rights group will ask a federal judge Thursday to order the Pentagon to stop enforcing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the law barring gays from serving openly in the military . . . ‘We want her to block any further enforcement or application of don’t ask, don’t tell wherever we have military operations — not just in California, not just in this country but wherever we have military bases anywhere in the world,’ [attorney Dan Woods] said.”

KCBS: “Elated by a major court victory, gay-rights activists are stepping up pressure on Congress to repeal the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy this month. They want to avoid potentially lengthy appeals and fear their chances for a legislative fix will fade after Election Day.”

US News and World Report: “Mehlman’s self-outing has drawn increased attention to the political activism of gay and lesbian Republicans at a time when the Democratic Party is far more often associated with backing gay rights. The Log Cabin Republicans, a PAC that has since the late 1970s promoted ‘a more inclusive Republican Party for gay and lesbian Americans,’ has given financial support to several congressional candidates.”

San Angelo Standard-Times: “A gay and lesbian group’s fall fundraising events will have a Texas flair, thanks to scheduled appearances by Dallas Rep. Pete Sessions and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. Sessions, who is in charge of House GOP fundraising, has agreed to speak at the Log Cabin Republicans 2010 National Dinner on Sept. 22 in Washington.”

The National Law Journal: “The military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy fails to set forth a government interest that warrants intruding on the constitutionally protected rights of openly homosexual members to serve, the Log Cabin Republicans argued as the trial in the organization’s challenge to the policy wound down on Friday. … Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Freeborne, defending the policy for the government, replied: ‘Log Cabin has endeavored to spend the last few weeks presenting the court with a policy debate — a debate it lost in 1993 before Congress. Congress exhaustively considered the same matters that plaintiffs rest their experts’ opinions on.’” | Related: At closing arguments, Log Cabin Republicans ask for halt to “don’t ask, don’t tell”

Findlaw (AP): “The trial in Riverside starts Tuesday and is scheduled to last two weeks. Dan Woods, attorney for the Log Cabin Republicans, says he wants a federal judge to halt the policy immediately nationwide.”

“But U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, in her final pretrial ruling, said Wednesday that higher court rulings in recent years have raised the bar for the government to justify laws that single out gays and lesbians for harsher treatment.”

The Fire: In two previous Torch entries on Professor John McAdams’s fight to keep his tenure at Marquette University, I’ve focused on Marquette’s abuses of McAdams’s due process rightsand the subversions of basic free speech principles it has used first to justify his suspension, and then to justify its aim of revoking his tenure.

The Telegraph: Discrimination against Christians is being “ignored” by governments and courts, MPs from across Europe have warned in the wake of a string of cases involving the rights of British workers to wear crosses or discuss their beliefs.